SEO Checklist for Rocketspark Websites

This checklist is specifically for websites built on Rocketspark - but the principles are universal!

Keywords: 

• What do you want to be found for?
• What services do you provide?
• What areas do you service?

These answers will often be the basis of the keywords you use - but always good to do more in-depth research and put yourself in your customers shoes - an easy free tool is the Keyword Planner in Google Ads.

Where do I put keywords?:

• Organically throughout the page and headings.
• Keep each page to a theme with a focus on one or two specific keywords

Headings:

• One unique H1 heading per page - make this your priority keyword/theme for that page with the region you service
• Multiple H2 headings per page - but use these to define categories on the page
• Multiple H3 heading per page - these are longer, lower priority headings where you can add more keywords
• Also include the business name organically in your headings

Alt text:

• Add it to every image on your page - describe what is in the image
• Add your keywords for the page in the alt text also.

Metadata: (This is the text that appears in Google search results)

• Metadata Heading = Keyword/theme of that page, plus business name, and your point of difference/selling point
• Metadata description = Unique concise description of the page, include the keyword, or close variant of the keyword here also

Flint: (Rocketspark websites only)

Mega helpful! But something to note - 

• You'll receive that beautiful green bolt when you add your keyword 3 times on the page - BUT, Flint doesn't recognise keyword variants. 
• e.g. 'Cambridge Builder' =  'Builder in Cambridge'
  Google is smart enough to work out that both these keywords are essentially the same
• Other then that, Flint is fantastic! Use it!

Content:

• There is NO substitute for quality, useful and original content
• Give customers reasons to stay on the website
• Describe products/services in a unique way
• Use https://www.copyscape.com/ to check for any duplicate content on your site

Blogs:

• Answer common questions in your blogs in ORIGINAL ways
• Tools like https://answerthepublic.com/ can help you come up with blog post titles/themes

Backlinks:

• If you work closely with other business - ask them to add a link to your website
• This tells Google that your website/business is useful

Google My Business:

• Essential. I repeat, ESSENTIAL. 
• Create one, fill it out completely, and add your relevant/important keywords to it
• Send it to clients/customers and get them to leave 5 star Google reviews
• GMB will also help you more consistently appear when someone searches your business name

Google Search Console & Google Analytics:

• Connect your website up to both of these services and begin tracking data
• Submit a sitemap through Google Search Console to help your website get indexed quicker

What to avoid:

• Never try to outsmart Google - It's a super computer! You just have to play the SEO game!
• Don't camouflage text in the same colour as the background - you'll get flagged as potential spam
• Don't overuse keywords - again Google is smart! Make it organic and easy to read/understand 

Before you go live...

• Is the website content unique?
• Are my pages focused with important Keywords?
• Is there value to my visitors in reading on?

If the answer is yes to all of those questions, and you've done everything else listed above - your SEO is likely pretty good! And ahead of 80% of websites out there.

However it's important to remember that SEO is a long term and ongoing investment - it takes aaages to build organic traffic, so best to get cracking into it now and keep working on it with new fresh and valuable content!